Success Story
Interactive Objects Builds IBAS Budgeting System
for Danzas with ArcStyler
Industry
Logistics
Application
· Web-based budgeting application for
creating, managing and controlling all
IT-related products, projects and services
of all Danzas IT departments worldwide
· Outsourced project completely implemented by Interactive Objects as a one-stop
shopping, full solution provider
Danzas Group
With a strong presence in 150 countries on
all continents, the Danzas Group is the
world’s leading provider of IT-supported
logistics solutions. Innovative customized
solutions, worldwide air and ocean freight,
global project forwarding, European overland transport, e-business and 4th party
logistics enable Danzas to offer real one-stop
shopping. Based in Basel, Switzerland,
Danzas belongs to Deutsche Post World
Net. With a staff of more than 45,000, the
Danzas Group achieved sales of EUR 9.2
billion in 2001.
· Extremely fast development
· Optimization of customer-vendor interface
in outsourced projects
· Clearly predictable results and elimination of risk factors along the entire
project path
· Fast return on investment due to high
degree of automation provided by ArcStyler
· Full exploitation of all MDA benefits in a
given project without the necessity to
make any changes to the architecture of
the corporate IT landscape or the company’s IT-architectural approach
Stephan Rohrer,
Corporate IT Controller at Danzas
The Challenge
Benefits
· New application allows for more efficient
controlling of all IT budgets due to new
views, queries and evaluation functions,
thus enabling considerable savings
We were not really looking for Model
Driven Architecture. We wanted superi o r system quality, fast development, a
secure outsourcing approach and a
quick return on investment. Then we
learned that Interactive Objects’
approach ensures that MDA and these
benefits are synonymous.
Logistics nowadays is a lot more than
trucks, trains, ships and airplanes. The
ability to meet complex global logistics
requirements along complete supply
chains with value-added services on the
basis of advanced IT technologies gives
Danzas the decisive competitive edge.
More than 1,000 staff of INTE, the IT department of Danzas, provide the necessary
powerful IT services in offices all over the
world. Says Stephan Rohrer, Corporate IT
Controller at Danzas: “The reliability and
stability of our applications is key to the
success of our company. So whether we
make or buy, superior quality is always
paramount - we can’t afford surprises.”
Danzas needed to replace its existing
system for the budget management for all
IT departments. The old system used
approximately 20 Excel workbooks, each of
them with multiple worksheets. To create,
manage and control individual project budgets, functions and data had to be entered
and copied manually across several files
before the workbooks were e-mailed to and
returned from the appropriate persons.
This procedure was error-prone and resulted in considerable version management
effort. In addition, there were no efficient
mechanisms for access control, and the
implementation of custom queries and
reports was nearly impossible.
Headquarters
Interactive Objects Software GmbH
Basler Str. 65 D-79100 Freiburg
Germany Phone +49-(0)761-400 73-0
www.io-software.com
Danzas wanted an efficient Web-based budgeting system, based on J2EE, a BEA application server and a central Oracle database, technologies and products that are
used for numerous other applications in
the company. The problem was that
Danzas needed a high-quality solution fast
without having the internal resources available. The company had planned on a project timeline of no more than four months,
so they decided to buy, not to make.
Model Driven Architecture simply means
that the business logic of an application is
modeled at a level of abstraction that is
independent of implementation-specific
technological detail. In subsequent steps,
the implementation detail is added by
means of automated mapping techniques.
This separates the distinctly different lifecycles of the business system design from
the implementation technology and makes
the application future-safe.
The Application
In the initial requirements assessment
phase of four weeks, the functional structure
of the IBAS application was defined by a
consultant from Interactive Objects together
with the Danzas controllers. Interactive
Objects proposed a technical representation
of the domain-specific requirements of
Danzas in the form of elements of cost centers, cost positions, resource positions and
attributions. Explains Stephan Rohrer:
“Interactive Objects immediately understood our needs and quickly came up with
a solution. At a very early stage, we could
clearly see that their approach and expertise would turn the project into a success.”
Interactive Objects used its Architectural
IDE ArcStyler to develop the INTE Budget
Application System (IBAS), a fully Webbased J2EE application. Within an initial
requirements assessment phase of four
weeks, the functional structure of the
application was defined and a concept for
the graphical user interface proposed by
Interactive Objects.
The system was then implemented in a
development period of only three months
and deployed on a server in Paris. The central
database can be accessed via the Danzas
intranet and well-defined access control
mechanisms. Danzas’ users work with the
central IBAS elements of cost centers, cost
positions, resource positions and attributions to create, manage and control the
budgets for all Danzas IT projects and services around the globe.
The new application optimizes the workflows
involved in controlling the Danzas IT budgets. It allows the individual controllers to
access all data on the central server via a
sophisticated Web GUI. Different views,
reports and queries enable the effective
visualization of the cost status and developments in all our IT projects. New reporting
views can be added at any time. Says
Marco Argentieri, Corporate IT Controller at
Danzas: “The IBAS application makes our
cost structures a lot more transparent. It’s
the ad hoc availability of well-structured
data at any point on the globe that turns
IBAS into a major contribution to optimizing our IT investments.”
New Level of Efficiency to
Outsourcing Projects
The ArcStyler is the result of Interactive
Objects’ impressive consulting background
that clearly distinguishes the company from
other tool vendors. The ArcStyler consolidates a total of more than 500 years of consulting experience, making this packaged
know-how available to ArcStyler users. In
addition, customers benefit from this combination of tools and consulting experience in
projects outsourced to Interactive Objects
as a one-stop, full-service solution provider.
The Bottom Line
There is no need to make any changes to
the overall IT landscape of a company if
Model Driven Architecture is applied in
compact, outsourced projects. Even in
smaller projects, application development
with the ArcStyler ensures rapid implementation of high-ROI software systems. This
also applies to outsourced projects in
which Interactive Objects’ approach optimizes the customer-vendor interfaces and
streamlines the workflows. The rapidly growing community of ArcStyler partners using
the tool in their own development projects
provides convincing evidence of these
benefits.
Among other things, this is due to the fact
that the Model Driven Architecture approach taken by Interactive Objects and the
ArcStyler allow for the dramatic reduction
of a number of cost factors that have come
to be accepted as the “inherent” costs of IT
projects, but that are completely unnecessary. Often, several weeks or months are
built into project plans to cater to problems
with the “unexpected” or the “time to get
to speed”.
In the second project phase, Interactive
Objects used the ArcStyler to develop a
platform-independent UML model and
generate the entire infrastructure (EJB components and Web application) from this
model. The high degree of automation
along this development path ensured
superior quality, fast implementation within
just three months as well as cost-effectiveness.
The deliverables not only included the running application, but all models that were
created along this path. The standard UML
models provide an excellent, well-structured documentation of the system. Each
layer of the application is documented
exactly at the right level. This is far superior
to the typical documentation where business logic information is cluttered with
documentation concerning technical details at a low code level. These models can
be used with any UML tool since this format
is completely open, i.e. there is no ‘black
box’ involved. This allows the Danzas
domain experts to easily specify new functionality.”
Interactive Objects’ services and tools
make the company an excellent outsourcing partner. Their approach to
Model Driven Architecture is by no
means just a hype or an academic exercise, but plain common sense. The way
they practice application development
introduces a completely new quality
into optimizing outsourced projects.
Marco Argentieri,
Corporate IT Controller at Danzas
www.ArcStyler.com